Workshop to feature UH Manoa‘s award-winning life review program

HONOLULU — The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa will offer a free 16-week leadership training session July 10 through October 23 to help local organizations discover new ways to improve the lives of older, retired adults and those about to retire. The 16-week leadership training workshop will be conducted by Professor Emeritus Abe Arkoff, instructor at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in the UH Mānoa Colleges of Arts and Sciences.

Leadership training is based on Arkoff's life review and enhancement workshop, THE ILLUMINATED LIFEŽ , winner of the national 2004 MindAlert Award from the American Society on Aging and the MetLife Foundation for innovative and outstanding older adult learning programs. THE ILLUMINATED LIFEŽ workshop, accompanying guidebook and leader materials provide a comprehensive program designed to help independent older persons reflect on their lives and integrate the learning of a lifetime. Working through 14 "life questions," the workshop's retrospective-proactive orientation helps participants gather insights about their lives in order to consider and create new post-retirement roles for themselves.

The workshop has been given in its home base at the UH Mānoa Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and in other venues including support groups, churches, retirement residences, senior centers, alumni groups and at mainland lifelong learning institutes. Research findings reported in the April 2004 issue of The Journal of Humanistic Psychology provide evidence of the workshop's effectiveness in enhancing the well-being of older adults.

"In addition to benefiting individuals, the workshop is well-suited for use with affinity groups and organizations because it helps develop a group's sense of closeness, support, and community," Arkoff said. "Workshop leaders need to have people-helping skills and a sense of altruism. Ideal leaders include psychologists, social workers, gerontologists, teachers, counselors, and health-care professionals," he added.

Limited space is available in the leadership training sessions scheduled on Saturday afternoons, July 10 through October 23, from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Osher Institute in Krauss Hall on the UH Mānoa campus. Workshop registration deadline is June 24. For more information, contact Dr. Abe Arkoff at 956-6728 or e-mail arkoff@hawaii.edu.